Carrier Ethernet Demarcation Device

RAD's ETX-202A Carrier Ethernet demarcation device transports Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) traffic over fiber and delivers EPL and EVPL services. MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum)-9 and MEF-14 certified, the ETX-202A Carrier Ethernet demarcation device features advanced Carrier Ethernet capabilities that make it ideal for multi-tier carrier or mobile backhaul networks. These include advanced Ethernet OAM support to allow proactive inspection and diagnostics over the entire service path. In addition, traffic engineering functionalities per user port, per Ethernet flow and per class of service (CoS) assist carriers in addressing diverse client needs and offering strict SLAs with guaranteed quality-of-service (QoS).

• Delivers carrier-grade Ethernet services without heavy investments in additional overlay equipment

• Reduces OpEx through complete Ethernet OAM and Layer-2 loopback functionality

• Assures delivery of contracted services using robust bandwidth control mechanism and SLA monitoring per Ethernet flow

• Provides uplink protection for increased service resiliency

The ETX-202A is part of the EtherAccess® product suite, designed to enable REAL (Reliable, Economical, Accountable and Limitless) carrier-grade Ethernet services. The ETX-202A Carrier Ethernet demarcation device is owned and operated by the service provider and installed at customer premises. In addition to providing clear demarcation between provider and customer networks in FTTB (Fiber To The Business) deployments, the ETX-202A delivers Gigabit Ethernet access with end-to-end performance monitoring and management capabilities. RAD’s intelligent demarcation approach allows complete network visibility up to subscriber endpoints and facilitates remote management of differentiated services, regardless of the various protocols involved in the traffic path, the underlying networks or number of operators who own them.

 

The ETX-202A is also designed to deliver managed quality of service in next generation radio access networks (RANs), allowing mobile operators to enhance their 3.5G/4G service performance by combining Ethernet aggregation with OAM and SLA enforcement capabilities. The built-in Ethernet Service OAM and Ethernet Link OAM functionalities enable proactive service monitoring and easy fault localization – starting at the 4G NodeB, HSDPA base station or WiMAX cell site.

ETX-202A carries Ethernet traffic over fiber from subscriber end-points to the network’s edge, delivering access rates of up to 1,000 Mbps. The ETX-202A facilitates seamless transport of Ethernet traffic over different media by allowing any fiber/copper combination with a variety of UTP- and SFP-based network and user ports. Furthermore, ETX-202A supports a wide selection of SFP transceivers, allowing service providers to optimally connect customers located at different distances over various wavelengths.

The ETX-202A maps ingress traffic to EVCs (Ethernet virtual connections) using all-to-one and bundling schemes, and supports traffic classification according to various criteria:

• CE-VLAN ID

• CE-VLAN priority (Pbit)

• Customer DSCP/ ToS

• Subscriber port

 

In addition, the ETX-202A enables carriers to manage congestions intelligently, and allows users to benefit from performance guarantees for customized service packages that fit their needs. This is achieved by applying rate limitation parameters such as CIR (committed information rate), CBS (committed burst size), EIR (excess information rate) and EBS (excess burst size) to each class of service. Enhanced quality of service is further supported by eight flexible queues combining strict priority (SP) and weighted fair queue (WFQ) scheduling, to efficiently handle real-time, premium and best-effort traffic. The ETX-202A also uses weighted random early detection (WRED) policy to ensure that the queues are not congested and that high priority traffic is not dropped.

Using VLAN stacking (also known as double-tagging or Q-in-Q), the service provider can assign different service VLANs to traffic from different customers, thereby guaranteeing separation between each customer’s traffic within the service provider network. Customer VLAN encapsulation with service VLANs also allows transparent Ethernet LAN service (TLS).

ETX-202A Carrier Ethernet demarcation device features enhanced Ethernet OAM capabilities, to enable remote and automatic fault localization without service interruptions or costly on-site inspections. ETX-202A’s comprehensive Ethernet OAM suite includes:

 

Ethernet link OAM, based on IEEE 802.3-2005 (formerly 802.3ah), enabling link performance monitoring and remote fault indication for the Ethernet link connecting the customer location and the network. The ETX-202A NTU supports dying gasp and in-service, non-intrusive loopback testing.

 

End-to-end OAM, based on standard IEEE 802.1ag and ITU-T Y.1731, for performance measurements and fault localization over a single link or the entire service path, including frame delay, frame delay variation (“Jitter”), frame loss, and availability.

 

In addition to the non-intrusive OAM-based loopback testing, ETX-202A supports Layer-2 loopback for link integrity diagnostics, performed per VLAN or EVC, whereby the ETX-202A swaps the source and destination MAC addresses without disrupting the traffic flows that are not being tested.

ETX-202A offers several management alternatives, using different ports and applications:

• Local management via an ASCII terminal connected to the RS?232 port o Remote inband management via the user or network ports.
• Remote management is performed using Telnet, Web browser or RADview, RAD’s SNMP-based management system.

Complete separation between user and management traffic is enabled with Q-in-Q VLAN stacking. Additionally, the ETX-202A Carrier Ethernet demarcation device incorporates a variety of security and management features to ensure client?server communication privacy and correct user authentication. These include Telnet, SNMPv3, SSL for Web-based management application, SSH for Secure Shell communication session and RADIUS.

High-level service resiliency and five nines (99.999%) reliability require uplink redundancy. The ETX-202A provides this capability by supporting link aggregation (1+1) based on 802.3ad as well as dual homing (1:1) redundancy modes.